Technology assessment guides have been produced to help teachers develop their own specificassessment guides. Examples of specific assessment guides, developed from the common assessmentguide for each standard, have been produced as part of the external assessment resources forlevel 3Technology.

The specific assessment guidesalso show a variety of ways (ie

case study, research,

practice)toproduce external assessment material. The material in the candidate exemplars for each standardreflects the content and context of the specific assessment guides.

Teachers can adapt a common assessment guide and

/or a specific assessment guide to suit thespecific context of their course of teaching.

Candidate introduction

You will produce a report that demonstrates understanding ofareas of computer science.To completethe report you will need to reporton

at least two of theAreas of Computer Science

from explanatory note3 in the standard.

This specific assessment guide is one of six. Eachone of thespecific assessment guides relate

to oneofthesix

Areas of Computer Science.

Candidate guidance for producing the report

Thereare someprompts and activitiesbelow thatwill assistyou to write the part of

your report

oncomplexity and tractability.

They will help you to produce a report that demonstrates the understandingexpected in this assessment.The prompts also definethe levels of description, explanation,

anddiscussion that are expected at each grade.

To demonstrate understanding of areas of computer scienceat the Achieved levelyou will need to:



describekey problems that are addressed in selected areas of computer science



describe

examples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate in-depth understanding of areas of computer scienceat the Merit levelyou will need to:



explain howkey algorithms or techniquesare applied in selected areas



explain

examplesof practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of key algorithmsand/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate comprehensive understanding of areas of computer scienceat the Excellence levelyou

will need to:



discussexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas



evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms, techniques, or applications from selected areas.

Possible Activities

The activities below are activities which generate specific content that you can use to develop yourreport.

For example,

if you were to

investigate TSP

(see activity 6 below)you couldgenerate informationrelated to several parts of the report.

1.

Evaluate how much time is needed to solve the TSP, and evaluate approximate solutions (such asnearest neighbour first).

2.

Investigate the graph colouring problem; a sample plan for this is atComputing Inside's GraphColouring Activity, as well as theCS Unplugged's map colouring activity. It can be done online athttp://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/games/puzzles/map.htm.

Applications: these include route planning, timetabling, optimisation, games, and encryption.

Complexity and tractability

is about the relationship betweenproblems and their algorithms,and theidea that some common problems do not

have tractable solutions. This falls in the area ofcomputationalcomplexity theory. The focus is on the inherent complexity of aproblem, thatis, the time needed to solvea problem, and the best known algorithms for the problem. This area includes what is widely regarded asthe largest unsolved problem in computer science: the question of whether P = NP (the details of thisissue are beyond high

school level, but the explorations that can be performed at high school level willgive an understanding of why this is such a significant problem). The demonstration of understanding inthis area can be done by describing problems with known inherent complexities (both tractable andintractable) and those for which the complexity is an open question; by illustrating the issues surroundingintractable (exponential time) algorithms; by exploring the limits on what can be done with ‘intractable’

problems (such as the various records that have been set for solving the TSP); by comparing heuristicsolutions that give sub-optimal solutions; and by exploring the quest to find reasonable time algorithmsfor those that currently only have exponential time solutions, including recent discoveries about openquestions in this area.

Further information

Useful links:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory



http://www.tsp.gatech.edu/games/index.html



http://csunplugged.org/graph-colouring



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_packing_problem



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_path



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_search

Further information canbe found athttp://www.techlink.org.nz.

Exemplars

Please read the exemplars.You can model your work on these exemplars but you may not copy thematerial from the exemplars. Your report must bethe product of your ownefforts.

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidenceprovidedagainst the criteria.

Issues from the Specifications

Authentic candidate submissions will be recognisable because of specific contexts associated with the work.This does not imply that submissions will arise only from the candidate’s practice. However, where thecandidate’s practice does not provide the immediate source of a specific context, one would expect to see thatseveral sources of information relating to materials had beenapplied

within a specific context. In both cases, themarker will be ableto detect the candidate’s voice. In situations where information does not have some aspect ofstudent voice, it is difficult to establish whether the candidate has actually demonstrated understanding or simplyidentified information.

Candidates who have simply identified information by reproducing information from sources without making useof that information have not demonstrated understanding.

Where a candidate has provided a brief answer, the answer should not be penalised because of length.

Technology assessment guides have been produced to help teachers develop their own specificassessment guides. Examples of specific assessment guides, developed from the common assessmentguide for each standard, have been produced as part of the external assessment resources for level 3Technology.

The specific assessment guides also show a variety of ways (ie case study, research, practice)toproduce external assessment material. The material in the candidate exemplars for each standardreflects the content and context of the specific assessment guides.

Teachers can adapt a common assessment guide and

/or a specific assessment guide to suit thespecific context of their course of teaching.

Candidate introduction

You will produce a report that demonstrates understanding ofareas of computer science. To completethe report you will need to report on at least two of theAreas of Computer Science

from explanatory note3 in the standard.

This specific assessment guide is one of six. Each one of the specific assessment guides relate to oneof the sixAreas of Computer Science.

Candidate guidance for producing the report

Thereare someprompts and activities below that will assist you to write the part of

your report

on formallanguages.

They will help you to produce a report that demonstrates the understanding expected in thisassessment.The prompts also define the levels of description, explanation, and discussion that arediscussion that are expected at each grade.

To demonstrate understanding of areas of computer science at the Achieved level you will need to:



describekey problems that are addressed in selected areas of computer science



describeexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of key

algorithms and/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate in-depth understanding of areas of computer science at the Merit level you will need to:



explain howkey algorithms or techniquesare applied in selected areas



explainexamplesof practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of key algorithmsand/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate comprehensive understanding of areas of computer science at the Excellence level you

will need to:



discussexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas



evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms, techniques, or applications from selected areas.

Possible Activities

The activities below are activities whichgenerate specific content that you can use to develop yourreport. For example, if you were to show how a sample program could be parsed using a grammar youcouldgenerate information related to several parts of the report.

1.

Demonstrate how compilers, interpreters, parsers, or validators find errors in formal languages, egintroduce an error to a compiled program, XML document file, or web page, and show the effect ofthe error.

2.

Explore regular expressions for pattern matching using a system such as the ‘Regex dictionary’ athttp://www.visca.com/regexdict/, the Microsoft Word Find command with wildcards, regularexpressions available in a language such as Java (java.util.regex), JavaScript (RegExp), or Python(‘re’ module), or the ‘grep’ program, to find words in an English dictionary that match a pattern.

3.

Find a grammar for a simple arithmetic expression in a programming language, and show the parsetree for sample expressions (such as (a+b)*(c-d)).

4.

Make up a few

simple Regular expressions (such as ab*a), create a (non-deterministic) finite stateautomaton for each one using a tool like JFLAP, and show the operation of the automaton for samplestrings (aa, aba, abba, etc in the case of the example).

5.

Write regularexpressions to find patterns in documents, such as a URL, email address, date, ortime.

6.

Find a grammar for a programming language, and show how a sample program would be parsedusing the grammar.

7.

Explore the grammar for balanced parentheses S

SS, S

(S), S

( ).

8.

Explore using a tool such as Lex, Yacc, Flex, or Bison to parse a simple language.

9.

Generate art using the ‘context free art’ system (http://www.contextfreeart.org/).

Formal languages is about how to specify programming, markup, and other languages for computing,and systems that can parse and process programs or documents written in such languages. They arespecified by formal representations such as syntax diagrams (‘railroad diagrams’), grammars, regularexpressions, and finite state machines. The language could be a conventional programming language(such as Java, Python, C, or Basic), another formal language with a strict syntax (such as XML, HTML,or SQL), or the focus could be on regular expressions and lexical analysis (such as detecting a well-formed identifier or number in a programming language, or a string matching a given pattern). Mostprogramming languages have very large formal definitions, and it would be sufficient to demonstrateunderstanding using a part of a language, such as expressions in a programming language, or a smallselection of different kinds of tags in HTML. The demonstration would typically be done by usingexamples to show the parse tree (or syntax tree) for a correct and incorrect program fragment, or toshow a sequence of grammar productions to construct a correct program fragment, or to show stringsgenerated by a simple regular expression and accepted by a finite state machine that corresponds to it.

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidenceprovided against the criteria.

Issues from the Specifications

Authentic candidate submissions will be recognisable because of specific contexts associated with the work.This does not imply that submissions will arise only from the candidate’s practice. However, where thecandidate’s practice does not provide the immediate source of a specific context, one would expect to see thatseveral sources of information relating to materials had beenapplied

within a specific context. In both cases, themarker will be able to detect the candidate’s voice. In situations where information does not have some aspect ofstudent voice, it is difficult to establish whether the candidate has actually demonstrated understanding or simplyidentified information.

Candidates who have simply identified information by reproducing information from sources without making useof that information have not demonstrated understanding.

Where a candidate has provided a brief answer, the answer should not be penalised because of length.

Technology assessment guides have been produced to help teachers develop their own specificassessment guides. Examples of specific assessment guides, developed from the common assessmentguide for each standard, have been produced as part of the external assessment resources for level 3Technology.

The specific assessment guidesalso show a variety of ways (ie

case study, research,

practice)toproduce external assessment material. The material in the candidate exemplars for each standardreflects the content and context ofthe specific assessment guides.

Teachers can adapt a common assessment guide and

/or a specific assessment guide to suit thespecific context of their course of teaching.

Candidate introduction

You will produce a report that demonstrates understanding of

areas of computer science. To completethe report you will need to reporton

at least two of theAreas of Computer Science

from explanatory note3 in the standard.

This specific assessment guide is one of six. Each one of the specific assessment guides relate to oneof the sixAreas of Computer Science.

Candidate guidance for producing the report

There are some prompts and activities below that will assist you to write the part of your report ongraphics and visual computing.

Theywill help you to produce

a report that demonstrates theunderstanding expected in this assessment. The prompts also define the levels of description,explanation, and discussion that are expected at each grade.

To demonstrate understanding of areas of computer science at the Achieved level you will need to:



describekey problems that are addressed in selected areas of computer science



describeexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate in-depth understanding of areas of computer science at the Merit level you will need to:



explain howkey algorithms or techniquesare applied in selected areas



explainexamplesof practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use ofkey algorithmsand/or techniques from these areas.

is about using computers to create images and animations based on adescription of a scene or collected data (computer graphics and visualisation), and the reverse processof processing images and recognising elements in an image (computer vision). Often the term ‘visualcomputing’

encompassescomputer graphics, so the term ‘graphics’

isn’t strictly required in the name ofthis area; also note that in this context it

doesnot

refer to the use of ‘visual programming languages’ or‘visual programming environments’

eg

Visual Studio. The creation of images could be as simple as a 2Ddrawing program, or as advanced as 3D systems for entertainment or to help visualise a data set.Computer vision is used to capture information from the real world or to recognise situations such as apotential vehicle collision. These topics can be explored by evaluating the effectiveness of existingsoftware for these

purposes, and exploring algorithms and techniques for rendering images andrecognising the contents of an image. This topic is distinct from the standards that explore the use ofmultimedia software as it explores the details of how that software works.

Further information

Useful links:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_vision



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham’s_line_algorithm



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_trace



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mri



http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/mukundan/cogr/applcogr.html



http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/mukundan/covn/applcovn.html



http://www.povray.org/resources/links/3D_Tutorials/POV-Ray_Tutorials/

Further information can be found athttp://www.techlink.org.nz.

Exemplars

Please read the exemplars.You can model your work on these exemplars but you may not copy thematerial from the exemplars. Your report must be the product of your own efforts.

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidenceprovided against the criteria.

Issues from the Specifications

Authentic candidate submissions will be recognisable because of specific contexts associated with the work.This does not imply that submissions will arise only from the candidate’s practice. However, where thecandidate’s practice does not provide the immediate source of a specific context, one would expect to see thatseveral sources of information relating to materials had beenapplied

within a specific context. In both cases, themarker will be able to detect the candidate’s voice. In situations where information does not have some aspect ofstudent voice, it is difficult to establish whether the candidate has actually demonstrated understanding or simplyidentified information.

Candidates who have simply identified information by reproducing information from sources without making useof that information have not demonstrated understanding.

Where a candidate has provided a brief answer, the answer should not be penalised because of length.

Technology assessment guides have been produced to help teachers develop their own specificassessment guides. Examples of specific assessment guides, developed from the common assessmentguide for each standard, have been produced as part of the external assessment resources for level 3Technology.

The specific assessment guidesalso show a variety of ways (ie

case study, research,

practice)toproduce external assessment material. The material in the candidate exemplars for each standardreflects the content and context of the specific assessment guides.

Teachers can adapt a common assessment guide and

/or a specific assessment guide to suit thespecific context of their course of teaching.

Candidate introduction

You will produce a reportthat demonstrates understanding ofareas of computer science. To completethe report you will need to reporton

at least two of theAreas of Computer Science

from explanatory note3 in the standard.

This specific assessment guide is one of six. Each one of

the specific assessment guides relate

to one

of the sixAreas of Computer Science.

Candidate guidance for producing the report

There are some prompts and activities below that will assist you to write the part of your report onintelligent systems. They

will help you to produce a report that demonstrates the understanding expectedin this assessment. The prompts also define the levels of description, explanation, and discussion thatare expected at each grade.

To demonstrate understanding of areas of computer science at the Achieved level you will need to:



describekey problems that are addressed in selected areas of computer science



describeexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate in-depth understanding of areas of computer science at the Merit level you will need to:



explain howkey algorithms or techniquesare applied in selected areas



explainexamplesof practical applications of selected areas to

demonstrate the use of key algorithmsand/or techniques from these areas.

are systems that exhibit aspects of human intelligence in their interaction with theirusers or environment. Engineering such systems and the study of theoretical and practical issuessurrounding them is the subject of the field of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is primarily a branch ofcomputer science but it has borrowed a lot of concepts and ideas from other fields, especiallymathematics (particularly logic,

combinatorics, statistics, probability,

and optimisation theory), biology,psychology, neuroscience,

and philosophy. This area can be explored by experimenting withexisting AIsystems, such as online chatbots, decision systems, machine learning systems,search engines,machine translation, spam detectors, video game bots, and object recognition (egface detection)systems. There is a lot of opportunity for exploring predictions and ethical debates regarding intelligentsystems such as the concept of the singularity, Moravec’s Paradox, Searle’s Chinese Room, and thevalue of the Turing test;

these have some bearing on the

concepts in this standard, but could beexplored as part of a separate generic standard relating to ethics or the effect of technology on

society.

Further information

Useful links:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_artificial_intelligence



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning



http://www.cs4fn.org/ai/meetthechatterbots.php



http://www.alicebot.org/



http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence



http://www.ted.com/conversations/topics/artificial+intelligence



http://www.cs4fn.org/ai/illusionintelligence.php

Further information can be found athttp://www.techlink.org.nz.

Exemplars

Please read the exemplars.You can model your work on these exemplars but you may not copy thematerial from the exemplars. Your report must be the product of your own efforts.

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidenceprovided against the criteria.

Issues from the Specifications

Authentic candidate submissions will be recognisable because of specific contexts associated with the work.This does not imply that submissions will arise only from the candidate’s practice. However, where thecandidate’s practice does not provide the immediate source of a specific context, one would expect to see thatseveral sources of information relating to materials had beenapplied

within a specific context. In both cases, themarker will be able to detect the candidate’s voice. In situations where information does not have some aspect ofstudent voice, it is difficult to establish whether the candidate has actually demonstrated understanding or simplyidentified information.

Candidates who have simply identified information by reproducing information from sources without making useof that information have not demonstrated understanding.

Where a candidate has provided a brief answer, the answer should not be penalised because of length.

Technology assessment guides have been produced to help teachers develop their own specificassessment guides. Examples of specific assessment guides, developed from the common assessmentguide for each standard, have been produced as part of the external assessment resources for level 3Technology.

The specific assessment guidesalso show a variety of ways (ie

case study, research,

practice)toproduce external assessment material. The material in the candidate exemplars for each standardreflectsthe content and context of the specific assessment guides.

Teachers can adapt a common assessment guide and

/or a specific assessment guide to suit thespecific context of their course of teaching.

Candidate introduction

You will produce a report that demonstrates understanding ofareas of computer science. To completethe report you will need to reporton

at least two of theAreas of Computer Science

from explanatory note3 in the standard.

This specific assessment guide is one of six. Each one of the specific assessment guides relate to oneof the sixAreas of Computer Science.

Candidate guidance for producing the report

There are some prompts and activities below that will assist you to write the part of your report on

network communication protocols.

The prompts will help you to produce a report that demonstrates theunderstanding expected in this assessment. The prompts also define the levels of description,explanation, and discussion that are expected at each grade.

To demonstrate understanding ofareas of computer science at the Achieved level you will need to:



describekey problems that are addressed in selected areas of computer science



describeexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/ortechniques from these areas.

To demonstrate in-depth understanding of areas of computer science at the Merit level you will need to:



explain howkey algorithms or techniquesare applied in selected areas



explainexamplesof practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of key algorithmsand/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate comprehensive understanding of areas of computer science at the Excellence level you

will need to:



discussexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas



evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms, techniques, or applications from selected areas.

Possible Activities

The activities below are activities which generate specific content that you can use to develop yourreport.

For example,

if you were to

Use tools like traceroute to evaluate the time taken and number ofhops required for packets to be transmitted through the internet

(see activity 1 below)you could

generate information related to several parts of the report.

21.

Use tools like traceroute to evaluate the time taken and number of hops required for packets to betransmitted through the internet.

22.

Using packet analyser software (eg wireshark), trace the sequence of exchanges that occur for aprotocol such as DNS, UDP, or HTTP using an example on your own system.

23.

Participate in and document the ‘tablets of stone’ activity (http://csi.dcs.gla.ac.uk/workshop-view.php?workshopID=4).

24.

Explain how HTTP provides the foundation of the world wide web, how IP solves the problem ofindividually addressing the thousands of computers that comprise the internet, and / or how DNSmakes the internet friendly for human users.

25.

Use tools to show how encryption algorithms and security protocols can provide confidentiality,integrity, and availability of information exchanged between parties.

Applications: many real protocols (egTCP/IP) could rapidly become overwhelming at this level.Protocols that students could investigate that are less complex are DNS, UDP, HTTP (get and post), theaddressing

part of IP, SMTP and CDMA, and internet security protocols such as SSL, IPSec,

focus on the techniques applied in computer networks to ensurereliable communication of data between two parts of a network in the face of different kinds of threatsand failures. The project would typically be done by giving examples of the sequence of events thatoccur in these situations, discussing how the protocols and their coding schemes overcome theproblems, and evaluating how successful they are at addressing them. This topic is distinct from thecoverage of networking in the infrastructure standards because it focuses on the issues that theprotocols address (iethe design of the protocol), rather than how to configure a system

that uses a givenprotocol.

Further information

Useful links:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_protocol



http://www.w3schools.com/tcpip/



http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics



http://csi.dcs.gla.ac.uk/workshop-view.php?workshopID=4



http://www.cbtnuggets.com/

(Cisco CCENT ICND1 640-822 series

–

free preview but fee for fullaccess)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_protocol



http://www.povray.org/resources/links/3D_Tutorials/POV-Ray_Tutorials/

Further information can be found athttp://www.techlink.org.nz.

Exemplars

Please read the exemplars.You can model your work on these exemplars but you may not copy thematerial from the exemplars. Your report must be the product of your own efforts.

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidenceprovided against the criteria.

Issues from the Specifications

Authentic candidate submissions will be recognisable because of specific contexts associated with the work.This does not imply that submissions will arise only from the candidate’s practice. However, where thecandidate’s practice does not provide the immediate source of a

specific context, one would expect to see thatseveral sources of information relating to materials had beenapplied

within a specific context. In both cases, themarker will be able to detect the candidate’s voice. In situations where information does not have some aspect ofstudent voice, it is difficult to establish whether the candidate has actually demonstrated understanding or simplyidentified information.

Candidates who have simply identified information by reproducing information from sources without making useof that information have not demonstrated understanding.

Where a candidate has provided a brief answer, the answer should not be penalised because of length.

produced to help teachers develop their own specificassessment guides. Examples of specific assessment guides, developed from the common assessmentguide for each standard, have been produced as part of the external assessment resources for level 3Technology.

The specific assessment guidesalso show a variety of ways (ie

case study, research,

practice)toproduce external assessment material. The material in the candidate exemplars for each standardreflects the content and context of the specific assessment guides.

Teachers can adapt a common assessment guide and

/or a specific assessment guide to suit thespecific context of their course of teaching.

Candidate introduction

You will produce a report that demonstrates understanding ofareas of computerscience. To completethe report you will need to reporton

at least two of theAreas of Computer Science

from explanatory note3 in the standard.

This specific assessment guide is one of six. Each one of the specific assessment guides relates to oneof the

sixAreas of Computer Science.

Candidate guidance for producing the report

There are some prompts and activities below that will assist you to write the part of your report on

software engineering.

They

will help you to produce a report that demonstrates

the understandingexpected in this assessment. The prompts also define the levels of description, explanation, anddiscussion that are expected at each grade.

To demonstrate understanding of areas of computer science at the Achieved level you will need to:



describekey problems that are addressed in selected areas of computer science



describeexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate in-depth understanding of areas of computer science at the Merit level you will need to:



explain howkey algorithms or techniquesare applied in selected areas



explainexamplesof practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of key algorithmsand/or techniques from these areas.

To demonstrate comprehensive understanding of areas of computer science at the Excellence level you

will need to:



discussexamples of practical applications of selected areas to demonstrate the use of keyalgorithms and/or techniques from these areas



evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms, techniques, or applications from selected areas.

Possible Activities

The activities below are activities which generate specific content that you can use to develop yourreport.

For example,

if

you were toReview what went wrong in a software disaster

(see activity 3 below)you couldgenerate information related to several parts of the report.

1.

Interview practicing software engineer(s) about the techniques they use and the problems theyencounter

in their job, contrasting a plan-driven methodology with an agile methodology.

2.

Play the SimSE game (http://www.ics.uci.edu/~emilyo/SimSE/) using the waterfall and ExtremeProgramming approaches, and report on what happened during the experience, contrasting the twoapproaches.

3.

Review what went wrong in a software disaster.

4.

Report on the viability of a career in software engineering (eg demand for software engineers).

5.

Report on an experience doing a team activity that highlights the importance of communication andplanning in a team working to create a product within constraints (eg building a house of cards orcompleting the 48-hour film competition), carefully following the role of each person, how they knewwhat to do, how effective the allocation of work was, and whether the desired outcome wasachieved.

Applications: any large software project is an application of this topic. There is much informationavailable publicly about large software projects (including some significant disasters), or students couldinterview someone involved in a current large project.

Software engineering

is about systematic approaches applied to large software projects, typically withmany team members and large amounts of program code, so that the products

behave reliably andefficiently, are affordable to develop and maintain, and satisfy customer requirements. This area can beexplored by learning about common software engineering methodologies (including examples of ‘plan-driven’ and ‘agile’

approaches)and the different roles and skills required in a software engineeringproject, particularly analysis, development, testing,

and maintenance. Understanding can bedemonstrated by doing case studies of software projects through interviews with software engineers,researching reports about successful and unsuccessful projects, running a simulation of a softwareengineering project, or reflecting on teamwork experiences that simulate the issues that arise in softwareengineering. The report should discuss the main issues and compare different approaches in the contextof commercial projects that involve multiple team members. This topic is distinct from the programmingstandards because it explores large systems developed by teams of people; participating in such aproject is way beyond the scope of Level 3 work, and the expectation is that students will reviewcommercial or simulated projects, rather than run one themselves.

Final grades will be decided using professional judgement based on a holistic examination of the evidenceprovided against the criteria.

Issues from the Specifications

Authentic candidate submissions will be recognisable because of specific contexts associated with the work.This does not imply that submissions will arise only from the candidate’s practice. However, where thecandidate’s practice does not provide the immediate source of a specific context, one would expect to see thatseveral sources of information relating to materials had beenapplied

within a specific context. In both cases, themarker will be able to detect the candidate’s voice. In situations where information does not have some

aspect ofstudent voice, it is difficult to establish whether the candidate has actually demonstrated understanding or simplyidentified information.

Candidates who have simply identified information by reproducing information from sources without makinguseof that information have not demonstrated understanding.

Where a candidate has provided a brief answer, the answer should not be penalised because of length.